Secrets of successful collaboration: 48. plant seed ideas in different places and nudge along other people's seed ideas

Plant seed ideas (suggestions about what to find out about, who to talk to and work with, and what to do, etc.) and encourage their nurture and development.

Plant seed ideas in different places and within different people. Encourage discussion of seed ideas by seeking feedback about them. Where a seed idea is taking root, encourage its growth by suggesting people get together to explore how it could be developed and applied.

As well as planting and encouraging your own seed ideas, nudge along the seed ideas of others: if one partner expresses an interest in another partner and his/her expertise and ideas, nudge them together; if partners ask why a person or organisation is not involved in the work of a collaboration, show interest in the query and (if appropriate) nudge them towards making contact with the person or organisation identified; if partners express enthusiasm for an idea, again show interest and (if appropriate) nudge them towards finding ways to develop the idea.

(Plant seed ideas in different places and nudge along other people's seed ideas to encourage dialogue and the sharing of ideas, encourage curiosity, and increase participation and involvement.)

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Secrets of successful collaboration: 47. see what is in front of you

Enhance your ability to tap into the unusual by seeing what is in front of you rather than what you think is in front of you. Judge ideas rationally, based upon their merits. Do not allow your judgement of ideas to be influenced by your preconceptions about the people or organisations offering ideas. Focus upon "here and now" realities rather than "wherevers and whenevers" of generalised assumptions. 

 (See what is in front of you to not only enhance your ability to tap into the unusual but also increase inclusion and participation, challenge pre-conceptions and encourage curiosity, increase understanding and empathy, acknowledge value, and enhance your personal credit history of collaboration.)

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Secrets of successful collaboration: 46. tap into the unusual

Search for and explore unusual non-mainstream ideas. Open your mind to their possibilities and explore them with enthusiasm.

Work at seeing the ideas from others' perspectives. Work hardest at seeing the ideas from their owners' and users' perspectives; do your best to feel others' enthusiasm for their ideas.

Find ways to assimilate unusual ideas and approaches into the mainstream.

(Tap into the unusual to increase inclusion and participation, show respect and acknowledge value, encourage curiosity and challenge accepted ways of doing things, increase understanding and empathy, add to a shared history of collaboration, enhance reputations for collaboration, and reduce the negative effects of mainstream status.)

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Secrets of successful collaboration: 45. share your enthusiasm

Share your enthusiasm for not only your collaborative work but also your collaborative relationships. Champion the collaborative approach and the development of collaborative relationships through your words and actions; allow your personal beliefs and feelings about the importance of collaboration and collaborative relationships to colour and enrich your language and guide your actions and decisions.

(Share your enthusiasm to show people what motivates you personally as well as professionally, help implicit feelings and values to become explicit, and encourage empathy and understanding.)

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Secrets of successful collaboration: 44. be curious about and enjoy the journey

Enjoy the journey you are taking with others. Be curious about the paths you follow and welcome and embrace the surprises they provide. If you take an apparent wrong turn, be curious about where it leads. Pause occasionally to take stock. Where are you in your collaboration's journey? Where have you been? Where could you go?

As you and others have travelled together, what memorable events have happened and what insights have you and others gained as a result? What has each person learnt about the other? What has each person learnt about their collaboration with others?

What has been most enjoyable about your journey with others? Why was this? What has been most disappointing? What can be learnt from this?

(Be curious about and enjoy the journey to enhance your understanding of those with whom you are travelling, encourage curiosity and conversation, increase the flexibility and resilience of collaborative relationships, and enrich your shared history of collaboration.)

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Secrets of successful collaboration: 43. share and explore mistakes and make mistakes make things better

Be honest about your mistakes; share and explore them with others. Encourage people to share and explore their mistakes with you and each other. Crucially, focus upon how lessons learnt from mistakes can help enhance processes and outcomes: make mistakes make things better.

(Share and explore mistakes and make mistakes make things better to increase openness and sharing, encourage mutual trust, and emphasise the interdependence between people: the fact that people need to work together to overcome each other's mistakes.)

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Secrets of successful collaboration: 42. explore differences and allow discord the time and space to resolve

When disagreements, arguments and conflicts emerge, do not immediately seek to close them down or resolve them; allow them time and space to be expressed and explored. When someone disagrees, argues or comes into conflict with you, welcome his or her provocations and invest time and space in exploring them.

(Explore differences and allow discord the time and space to resolve so you encourage dialogue, challenge current thinking and ways of doing things, encourage collaborative flexibility, build collaborative resilience, demonstrate respect for differing ideas and beliefs, enhance mutual understanding, and encourage implied and partially expressed thoughts and feelings to become clear and explicit.)

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Secrets of successful collaboration: 41. explore what lies between, within, around, beneath and behind

Verbalise thoughts and intuitions that lie between, within, around and behind your explicit and fully formed ideas and opinions; encourage others to do the same. Identify what no one is talking about (e.g., the "elephant in the room" that no one wishes to tackle) and talk about it. Explore taken for granted but often powerful assumptions that lie beneath decisions and actions (e.g., assumptions about what is or is not the problem). 

(Explore what lies between, within, around, beneath and behind to enrich conversation, increase sharing of opinions and ideas, etc., increase inclusion, challenge existing taken for granted assumptions and beliefs, increase mutual understanding, encourage curiosity, and make what was implicit explicit.)

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Secrets of successful collaboration: 40. use others' words

Become familiar with the words your collaborators use to describe and express things. What words do they use to describe their key concepts and areas of expertise? What words do they use to describe the key concepts and areas of expertise they share with you?

Try out their words; when talking with your collaborators, use their words.

(Use others' words to increase your understanding of others and encourage empathy.)

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Secrets of collaborative success: 39. introduce freshness

Introduce new people and ideas into your existing collaborative relationships to freshen perspectives and stimulate new approaches.

Change the environment within which you and others interact (e.g., rotate meetings between collaborators' offices, or meet and work where the beneficiaries of your collaboration's activities live) to not only gain fresh perspectives and approaches but also, quite literally, experience the positions of others. 

Work with people to construct small experiments and "try-outs" that test and explore new concepts, ideas and approaches. 

(Introduce freshness to increase collaborative flexibility, increase inclusiveness, encourage curiosity, and challenge current perspectives and ways of doing things.)

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Secrets of successful collaboration: 38. paint a rich picture

As well as sharing your knowledge, ideas and suggestions, share why, where, when, how and with whom you discovered and developed them.
 
Share the story of your knowledge, ideas and suggestions. Enrich your story with contextually specific and personal details.
 
(Paint a rich picture of your story to help people get to know you personally as well as professionally and show that you acknowledge and value the contributions of others.)

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Secrets of successful collaboration: 37. be consistently open for business

Work at being open to people.

Make sure people know they can approach you. Do not allow the demands of time and the habits of routine to narrow the avenues through which people can approach you.

Place "open for business" signs on the shop windows at the periphery of your collaboration's activities and welcome and usher in anyone who shows an interest, including the most casual of window shoppers.

Keep your internal mental camera rolling so you can notice and then catch up with people and ideas you could not immediately acknowledge and explore.

Keep your internal mental camera rolling so you can notice and then make the most of opportunities arising from encounters with "friendly strangers": hardly known but friendly people with whom you have effective but rare interactions.

(Be consistently open for business to increase inclusiveness, encourage conversation and face-to-face interactions, and show you have time and respect for people.)

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Secrets of successful collaboration: 36. pass important things to others physically face-to-face in the same space

When passing important things to others, meet physically and pass the things face-to-face in the same space. 

Knowledge, skills, feedback, praise, resources, authority, responsibility, accountability, leadership, ownership, insights, opinions: whatever they are, if they are important, pass them to others personally.

(Pass important things to others physically face-to-face in the same space to emphasise the value you place on both the individual and the thing you are passing to him/her, highlight the value you place on personal interaction, and create a tangible connection with another person that encourages mutual trust and respect.)

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Secrets of successful collaboration: 35. reboot your language and then create a shared language

At the beginning of your relationship with collaborators, use everyday "day-to-day" language whilst communicating with them: reboot to the default language you all have in common.

Then create a shared language for ideas and concepts, etc., you have in common with your collaborators but for which you use different words: create a common language for things you have in common.

(Reboot your language to encourage conversation and increase mutual understanding. Create a shared language to not only encourage conversation and increase mutual understanding but also increase feelings of mutual connection and begin the process of creating a shared history of collaboration.)

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Secrets of successful collaboration: 34. make time for playing and having fun

Invest time in playing with your own and others' ideas: make different assumptions about them; throw them into different, unexpected or unbelievable scenarios; use them in different and unexpected ways; link and combine them in different and unexpected ways; add to them; strip them down to their essentials.

When a "piece of play" proves particularly enjoyable, stay with and explore it for a while.  

(Make time for playing and having fun so you encourage curiosity and challenge current assumptions and ways of thinking, encourage informality, and increase collaborative flexibility and resilience.)

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Secrets of successful collaboration: 33. encourage and help people to be champions

Encourage and help people to find ways of championing the work of a collaboration.

Representing a collaboration within their own or others' organisations or at an event; making the case for a collaboration's aims and approach; being a real life example of the difference a collaboration can make to people's lives; championing a new idea or approach; championing the cause of a partner, stakeholder or beneficiary: use these and similar opportunities to encourage people to become "the face of the collaboration" (or the face of a specific aspect of the collaboration's activities).     

(Encourage people to be champions so you share the spotlight, improve your credit history of collaboration, reduce the negative effects of status, increase inclusiveness, and acknowledge the value of people and their contributions.)

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Secrets of successful collaboration: 32. encourage people to listen to and speak with each other

Encourage people to find the guidance and answers they need from not only you but also each other; do not always take centre stage. Encourage people to get together and provide leadership and support for one another. Encourage people to learn from and with each other. Encourage people to take responsibility for their quality of ensemble: the quality of how they perform together.

(Encourage people to listen to and speak with each other to increase the sharing of knowledge, experiences and beliefs, etc., encourage informal interactions and conversations, promote face-to-face interactions, increase mutual respect and trust, enhance personal credit histories of collaboration and increase participation and inclusion.)

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